NASA discovers new form of life…in California

NASA researchers announced today they’ve discovered a totally different type of life form that some go so far as to call “alien.” No, not on Mars, but in California’s Mono Lake.

According to NASA, the discovery of a bacteria made of arsenic, totally throws a wrench into how we think about life on earth and perhaps the universe. I’ll take their word for it.

NASA:

“The definition of life has just expanded,” said Ed Weiler, NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it.”

“The idea of alternative biochemistries for life is common in science fiction,” said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the agency’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “Until now a life form using arsenic as a building block was only theoretical, but now we know such life exists in Mono Lake.” (Read more)